As Saturday delivery sunsets, postman focuses on the work

Feb. 9, 2013

U.S. Postal Service facts:

• Free delivery of mail by the Postal Service, starting in cities, began through an act of Congress in 1863. For the first time, Americans had to put street addresses on their letters • The highest post office is in Leadville, Colo. at 10,150 feet above sea level; the lowest is Mecca, Calif., at 180 feet below sea level • The Postal Service delivers mail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Arizona by mule train. Each mule carries about 130 pounds of mail, food, supplies and furniture down the 8 mile trail to the Havasupai Indians at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, averaging 41,000 pounds per week. • In 2011, 168 billion pieces of mail were delivered with the help of 551,570 people and 213,881 vehicles • In 1775, Benjamin Franklin was appointed first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress; in 1847, the first U.S. postage stamps were issued. Source: about.usps.com

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Duane Gentz with the U.S. Postal Service maintained a brisk and efficient route Saturday, carrying mail to nearly every house of a neighborhood near Whitcomb Street and Prospect Road in Fort Collins.

“I love it,” the postman of 13 years said of his job.

Saturday volume is about the same as the rest of the week, and he works most Saturdays, Gentz said.

After losing $1.3 billion in the final three months of 2012, the Postal Service announced Wednesday that it plans to end Saturday mail deliveries in August but continue six-day-a-week package delivery and post-office box service. The agency’s revenue was within its operating budget, but a mandate to prepay expected retiree health-care costs and other expenses pushed it to a net loss, according to the Associated Press.

On Saturday, Gentz first walked up and down Balsam Lane with his mailbag, dropping letters, magazines and junk mail in door-mounted boxes. He returned in his van with a round of packages to be delivered to the homes before he continued to the next loop. It all took about 10 minutes.

Gentz has been delivering mail to Fort Collins residents for 13 years, and he’s following in the footsteps of his father, who was also a postman. He enjoys the exercise and fresh air. Sometimes he talks with people.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, they’re happy to see you,” he said. “They’re all friendly and talk about the weather and how things are going.”

He carries a bottle of pepper spray in his mailbag for dogs. Despite getting chased about twice each year, he hasn’t had to use it.

“It seems like the college area has more dogs,” he said, not long before a small dog yipped at him through a window.

Mail this time of year is a bit slower, he said, and it tends to be extra heavy around the winter holidays.

Free delivery began 150 years ago through an act of Congress.

Editor’s note: As a condition of the interview, the USPS asked that we not discuss recently-announced plans to eliminate Saturday mail deliveries that have resulted in contention among the agency, the union and legislators.